The MTV Video Music Awards give future voters an early lesson in electoral disappointment

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Thursday, September 6. All times are Eastern.

TOP PICK

MTV Video Music Awards (MTV, 8 p.m.): Eyes turned toward the stage at the front of a packed arena, America looks to one of the bright lights leading the country through these trying times, with one question in mind: Is it true Taylor Swift and that unnamed guy are never, ever, ever getting back together? The young singer-songwriter will deliver the keynote performance at MTV’s annual acknowledgement of the art form that gave it life, handing out increasingly meaningless Moonmen in between songs from Swift, Rihanna, Green Day, One Direction, and others.

Project Runway (Lifetime, 9 p.m.): Much of tonight’s regular primetime lineup scampered away in the face of the VMAs and coverage of the Democratic National Convention, leaving only Heidi Klum and her minions to stand strong with… a street-sale challenge. Margaret Eby’s excited by this prospect, however, as it gives Ven more chances to seal his fate by shooting his mouth off.

Childrens Hospital (Cartoon Network, 12 a.m.): More meta madness this week, as the characters playing the characters on Childrens Hospital provide grist for the tabloid mill. David Sims can’t wait until those fake actors, the characters they play, and the real actors playing both are revealed to be figments of an autistic patient’s imagination.

NTSF: SD: SUV:: (Cartoon Network, 12:15 a.m.): The world of tomorrow is today, as time-traveling anti-terrorism agents help present-day anti-terrorism agents prevent an attack set to occur a few days in the future. Kevin McFarland has a big chart that helps him make sense of it all.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (11 a.m.): When last we left Captain Sisko and crew, everything looked to be hunky dory—oh, wait. Oh no. No it did not. Zack Handlen mans his battle station for both parts of “The Search.”

Jersey Shore (MTV, 6 p.m.): VMA night is usually an occasion for MTV to launch a new series; instead, the 2012 edition is preceded by a retrospective of its soon-to-end study in guidology. Laugh, cry, cluck your tongue condescendingly, gym, tan, laundry.

Rookie Blue (ABC, 9 p.m.): And with the passing of another summer, the workers on the Canadian-American Cop Show Circuit packs up the tents and Missy Peregryms and heads back to Toronto—but not without a season-finale case involving child abduction.

2012 Democratic National Convention (Various networks, 9 p.m.): President Barack Obama accepts the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, but not before engaging in a quick, Old West shootout with invisible Clint Eastwood.

Texas Car Wars (Discovery, 10 p.m.): Lone Star mechanics keep the streets of Austin weird by fixing up busted vehicles and selling them for big bucks. Given the amount of time he spends sitting in traffic on the fit-to-burst highways of the Texas capital, Scott Von Doviak would prefer if these shops kept cars off the road.

Control (Sundance, 8 p.m.): First-time feature director Anton Corbijn applied the striking, black-and-white palette of his late-1970s photographs of Joy Division to this biopic of frontman Ian Curtis, a film infused with the nervous energy of the band’s music and haunted by the specter of Curtis’ 1980 suicide.

Blubberella (The Movie Channel, 8 p.m.): “Director Uwe Boll costars Adolf Hitler” he read, knowing full well that was the only feasible conclusion to the synopsis of a film about an overweight female superhero fighting Nazis.

College Football: Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (ESPN, 8 p.m.): Bound for the ACC in 2013, Pitt opens its final football season in the Big East against the Bearcats, who shared the conference title with West Virginia and Louisville in 2011.

Top Chef Masters: Can any of the masters prepare a meal that hits Sugar Ray Leonard like a right hook to the tastebuds? Which chef fell victim to a TKO at the table? Related: How long will Margaret Eby tolerate our terrible boxing puns?